


The Kind Of World Where We Belong

by WhiskeySoda



Category: Pentagon (Korea Band)
Genre: F/M, From 365 to retrofuture, Jealousy, M/M, Polyamory Negotiations, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Pregnancy Scares, retrofuture au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-27 21:12:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15693474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhiskeySoda/pseuds/WhiskeySoda
Summary: She plucks Hui’s cigarette from his mouth and presses it into the corner of her lip. Then, she repeats the action stealing Hyojong’s. Neither protest. Smoke burns on the way down, and billows on the way out. It makes her feel powerful, like a dragon. The confession comes out muffled, but she knows they both hear.“I think I’m fucking pregnant.”





	The Kind Of World Where We Belong

It’s that time of night, where if you catch your own shadow in the glow of a street lamp, it will run away from you. It’s that time of night, where even the cicadas have gone to bed for a few short hours. Soon, they’ll wake and moan so loud that the sun has to rise to shut them up. It’s that time of night, where the morning dew is on the cusp of curling up from the dirt and onto the grass but hasn’t yet. Moisture remains stagnant in the air and on the tongue. It’s that time of night, where the silence is scary, and any disjointed noise is terrifying. She isn’t sure what time it is, knows it’s definitely after three A.M. and if she lays here long enough, maybe she’ll see the sun rise.

The _huuuummm-thunk_ of cars rolling down the highway and hitting the pothole too hard is so infrequent, that it startles her when they pass by. Maybe, just maybe, someone will turn into the motel parking lot, drunk out of their mind after a night on Paradise Boulevard and smash her into the pavement. “I expect this from myself, not from you,” Hyojong says in a disembodied, matter of fact tone.

Sprawled out on the pavement of the motel parking lot, it’s got to be cleaner than the recycled comforter on the bed in their room. Her hair is fanned out around her head, and she knows she’ll be filthy. Trash the dress, and have Hui wash and comb out her hair later. “Well, where do you think I learned it from?”

She can hear the rustle of clothing as Hyojong moves, and it’s paired with a groan that makes him sound far older than he really is. Then, there’s warmth beside her, as he sprawls out onto the pavement next to her.

Between them, there’s only the sporadic sound of traffic, and the junky whose woken up from her latest nod in room 209. She’s screaming again, and honestly? It’s relatable.

It’s nice though. Hyojong doesn’t ask her what’s wrong. Just lets her brood.

It’s short lived though. Her view of the inky black sky and toy LightBright peg stars is interrupted by Hui’s upside-down face, smiling at them both. His dress shirt is mussed, and if she were the jealous type, she’d check for lipstick on his collar. But it’s easier to focus on how nice it looks when his sleeves are rolled up and he lets his suspenders hang low around his knees. “What’s Hyojong contemplating?”

“Actually, I found her down here. Didn’t want her to feel bad about laying out here alone like some kind of crazy person,” Hyojong responds in a matter of fact tone. “See, I’m supportive. Unlike when you refused to—”

Hyuna lazily presses her fingers over his mouth while Hui sits on the pavement next to her.

Hui doesn’t ask her what’s wrong either. Starts out easy to soften the blow. Sets a stack of twenties, she can’t see them, but she’d bet the whole stack based on the weight and the feel, on her chest. There’s a stack for Hyojong too, she’s sure of it, but Hui’s a gentleman and won’t reach over her body. “There’s still half a bottle in the room,” he notes, because he knows she drinks Hennessey and Diet Coke like it’s water. “I thought it would be gone, so now you have two.”

“Didn’t feel like it tonight.”

She can hear the _clink_ - _flick_ of his zippo, and taste the thick acrid flavor of butane as he lights up.

“Give me one,” Hyojong calls lazily from the other side.

Hui stuffs the lighter in the pack and tosses it over her. He’s mostly a gentleman, and he didn’t technically reach over her. “You got sick again this afternoon. When we were all asleep.”

The scent of butane comes back as Hyojong lights up, and it makes her stomach sour all over again.

 “Hui we ate fucking diner food at three a.m. That salmon was disgusting.”

As if he’s decided he’s not going to press the issue any further, Hui lies down with them both on the oil stained pavement, Armani and all.

It’s nice that he knows. Softens the blow of confessing.

Her long fingers barely look like her own as they cross her field of vision. Her nails are painted blue, and she really doesn’t like blue. She plucks Hui’s cigarette from his mouth and presses it into the corner of her lip. Then, she repeats the action stealing Hyojong’s. Neither protest.

The smoke burns on the way down, and billows on the way out. It makes her feel powerful, like a dragon. The confession comes out muffled, but she knows they both hear. “I think I’m fucking pregnant.”

* * *

On nights like this, he feels trapped in his own skin. The ozone from the city presses in the space between his muscle and his skin, and seeps into his heart killing him softly. On nights like this, he sees weeds spring up on the pavement and feels one in the same. Wants to uproot them carefully, transplant them into the hypodermic needle infested lot by the motel. On nights like this, when he hates the city for the cage that it is, he fully expects a rose to spring up from the cracks in the pavement and pull him back in.

When he finds her laying out in the lot between speed bumps, he’s reminded to be careful what he wishes for.

He knows something’s wrong. She wouldn’t drink with him tonight. Didn’t want to go run any errands: setting up card skimmers or make a round in the casino, but he’s not good at this kind of thing. Lost the last of his cash when he should’ve been gleaning chips, now all he can do is wait for Hui to show up and fix it. Money, the girl, the job. Same story different fucking day.

So, when Hui shows up and puts a stack of twenties on her tits, he’s not pissed. He’s grateful cause he knows he’s got a stack in his pocket for him too. Hyojong will get him back, always does.

When Hyuna plucks his cigarette from his mouth, and Hui’s too, he strains his neck upward to look at her. She looks stupid with two cigarettes in her mouth, and he’s not gonna lie, that’s when he likes her best. She’s hot when she’s scheming. Flat tire, dress too short, waiting for some sucker to pull over. She’s hot when she’s wedged between him and Hyojong covered in cum and demanding more even though they’re spent dry.

 But she’s honest to god cute in those brief moments where she’s ugly. When she first wakes up and thick red sleep lines from the duvet are branded across her face, when she’s drank too much and her face is puffy and the bags under her eyes are pronounced.

And his heart melts when her razor sharp wit is replaced by confusion.  Like when she decided to cook something for them, put chicken thighs in the microwave on the ‘poultry’ setting, and was honest to god surprised when it wasn’t cooked through.

So right now, when she looks ugly and stupid all at once? She could ask for the moon and he’d go find rope for a lasso.

“I think I’m fucking pregnant,” slips out of her mouth and suddenly it makes so much sense. He caught her out by the dumpster this morning, just shy of when they normally woke for the day. She was trashing her clothes, and didn’t say why. She boosted some vitamin d that afternoon when they walked into the convenience store, and asked for ultra-lights.

His first thought is that it’s probably Hui’s.

In the sky, he can see Orion’s belt, and if he looks down his nose and through his shoes he can see the periwinkle light of an impending sunrise. Icy cold fingers thread into his own, and long fingernails graze against the back of his hand.

It’s probably Hui’s. They fuck a lot. Roll the dice and look at the combination, they’ve done it like that. At least twice. But there’s this one thing…Hui likes it the most, but Hyuna likes it too and so does he, and that’s what makes it wild. Worth makes it worth repeating when they have a million or more options between the three of them.

Hui’s always in control. Any time he walks into a room. He’s got every exit nailed down, an assumption that’s probably scarily accurate about every person in the room, a run down of all the little details: mother of pearl cufflinks on the old guy to the right, bruise hidden by bad makeup on the girl to the left. Hui’s always in control.

Hui likes it when he and Hyuna take it away from him…and he likes it best when they give it right back.

He and Hyuna will wait in the motel room, peeking out the blinds and giggling like they’re middle schoolers. As soon as they see the long red band of the Skylark’s tail lights pull into the space outside of their room, they run toward the bed. Giggling, tripping over each other, pushing even though they’re going to the same place. A slap to Hyuna’s ass, and then she grinds against his cock, somehow they make it to the bed, shoes and shirts flying.

Sometimes they’ve gotta tease. Tell him to sit on the particleboard and tissue paper arm chair in the corner of the room and wait til they’re ready. Sometimes, they’ve been fucking around off and on all day. Hyuna’s already wet, lips puffy. He’s cum at least once and hits his stride. On those days, he can pull down her panties and fuck into her just in time for the scratch of Hui’s key in the door.

The intensity of Hui’s gaze is searing as soon as he enters the room, but he rarely does a goddamn thing. Kicks off his shoes, pulls down his suspenders, and unbuttons his shirt. From whatever liquor they have left over from the day before, he’ll make himself a drink in one of the plastic cups that litter the room.

Because they never let housekeeping in to replenish the room with new ones.

Hui walks, no fuck that, he saunters first to his own side of the bed, looking at the angle at which he’s fucking her. Then, he walks around the bed, going to Hyojong’s side, sinking into the chair, and really watches them fuck.

Ice clinks in the glass, Hui’s pants are undone, and he takes his cock out slowly.

Hyojong usually he fucks her in a way that Hui can _really_ see. He’ll hit it from behind, or on her back with one of her legs up over his shoulder. Watch him slide in and out over, and over and over again. Waits until Hui’s stopped circling the bed like a shark. Waits til he’s moved from the dilapidated arm chair to the side of the bed. Prays to a god that he doesn’t believe in that he won’t pop, and damn isn’t that hard. She’s so tight, and she’s so sweet. Especially when they’ve already fucked. So sensitive. Like everything he does is like touching her pussy for the very first time. Of course as soon as Hui’s in the room she’s writhing and shaking and doing everything she can to get his attention, like it wasn’t on her from the second he walked in.

When it happens, he just knows. Maybe it’s the way that Hui arches his brow, maybe it’s the way that Hui’s hand shakes when he finally reaches out to touch them. Maybe it’s the way that his own gut gets tight, letting him know that he’s close too. Whenever that happens, Hyojong pulls out and lets Hui slide in.

Of course, Hyuna makes the best noise when he pulls out, caught between a cry and a whine it’s something more precious than diamonds or gold because only they get to hear. Hui’s always in control, except for in moments like this. When Hyojong slides out, Hui slides in. By the time he finally gets to hit it, he’s already gone. Lasts a couple of minutes tops before he’s cumming into her pussy.

And even if Hui’s not in control, he always gets his way. When he’s spent and she’s sloppy, he always gives Hyojong _that_ look. That, ‘get your dick out of your hand and into my mouth’ kind of look. So Hyojong lets Hui suck him off with the taste of Hyuna’s pussy on his cock.

His first thought is that it’s probably Hui’s. His second thought comes as he reaches over to pluck his cigarette from Hyuna’s mouth, is that it’s probably fine that it’s Hui’s.

* * *

They think that he’s a control freak, and quite frankly, it’s just not accurate.

Nights like this are one in a million. There’s something in the air, supercharged and electric. Not like the nights where his palms itch and he’s got to go to the casino. Not like the nights where pretty girls wander out into the middle of the street and into your car. It’s different from when he’s hot, never mind the fact that he just raked in a decent chunk tonight. This is different. Tonight isn’t one of those nights where inky black ropes tie everything down, but it is the kind of night where life changes irrevocably and for forever.

He could feel it when he hit every green light on the drive back to the motel, and it’s only solidified when he finds them sprawled out on the pavement. Nothing about their haphazard existence has been knocked off center. The center has up and changed.

It’s the kind of thing you have no choice other than to surrender to. Bend your body, open your mind, otherwise it will all just break down, he knows because he used to be naive enough to believe that the iron grip he pretended to have on life was welded on. In the end, it’s just tin foil.

He hopes that they’re smart enough to surrender too.

It’s the kind of thing he’d take a photograph of if he had a camera. No, not the underpowered thing on his cellphone, but a real camera, loaded film and flashbulb. The sight of his pregnant girlfriend lying on the ground with his boyfriend is something that truly takes his breath away.

Hyuna’s hair is fanned out around her head as if she’d been ground into the pavement. Her soul seems as if it’s on the cusp of leaving her body, and her hair acts as a golden red halo.

Hyojong’s got his lower lip caught between his teeth, ever so slightly. In some ways, Hui’s already ahead. Little observations that Hyojong may or may not have picked up on make an intricate mosaic filled with color and texture in his mind. It’s formed, but despite the beautiful picture in front of him, he desperately need Hyojong on the same page. Needs him to walk into the gallery, tilt his head to the side, and tell him what he sees. Because of this, he’ll forgive them for dragging him down to the oil stained pavement. Get down low, learn the field, figure out the next move.

“What’s Hyojong’s contemplating?”

“I don’t know,” is answered in the roundabout way that only Hyojong can. “I found her down here.”

But it’s Hyuna that shows her hand when she presses her finger to his lips in an attempt to silence him.

He shouldn’t light up, not really. Not knowing what he knows, but anxiety tugs at his fingertips, splays wide across his chest, and makes his ears burn. Before he smoked, he bit his nails, and before he bit his nails, he bounced a rubber ball against the floor day in and day out. If he quits smoking what will he do? Surrender to another vice of course. He’s not the kind of person that can live in the absence of vices, but simply settles for something reshaped and made new again.

“Give me one.” Hui and Hyojong’s eyes meet for a split second and he knows the expression Hyojong wears all too well. Confusion mixes with deep, intimate knowledge, and the frustration of needing to talk but just barely being able to communicate through stolen glances.

He tosses his pack across Hyuna, and then Hyuna takes both of their cigarettes.

“I think I’m fucking pregnant.”

Hui’s first thought is that it’s probably Hyojong’s.

He could talk himself in circles for hours about the dynamics of the three of them, because he knows what works, and he knows what doesn’t. Instead, he’ll drag his Parliament down to the filter, and think about something Hyuna told him long ago, just before a job.

She straightened his Windsor knot after a quickie they didn’t have time for. Then, she bat her long eyelashes at him and said, “you’re so handsome.” As they rounded the hallway, they met the, ‘mysterious stranger, just in from Okinawa,” also known as Hyojong with a pricy dye job.  Hyuna, failing to pretend that she didn’t know Hyojong at all whispered into his ear with a laugh, “who is that? He’s sexy.”

More often than not their bedroom activities can best be described as a snake gorging itself upon it’s own tail. That’s why he thinks it’s Hyojong’s.

They take turns fucking into her. Hui likes to go in and out real slow until she’s whimpering and he’s about to pop. Likes the strange, freefall feeling when his cock is _so_ close from popping out. When he’s on the edge an about to fall, he wraps a hand around her front and toys with her clit until her fingernails dig into his arm, but she’s sobbing for more. When that happens, she’s pulling him back in, and she acts as a much needed lifeline in an ocean of sensation.  When his toes start to curl and vision tunnel, he pulls back. When he pulls back, Hyojong takes over.

When Hyojong fucks into her, his own slowness is replaced by a rapid, rhythmic slap of skin against skin.

Then, when Hyojong gets too close, jaw pulled tight and eyes blown wide, he pulls back and lets Hui take back over. 

Over and over and over again.

Whenever it’s Hyojong’s turn, Hui’s rarely content to watch. Makes his skin tingle and his mind race whenever Hyojong is objectively doing more than he is.

Sometimes he keeps touching Hyuna. Rubs her clit until her mascara is smeared across her face and her knees shake. But most of the time, he does his best to do his absolute worst to Hyojong. Leave a wet trail of kisses up and down his neck, pinch his nipples until he’s swearing at him through his teeth, “fuck you Hui,” like its some kind of promise.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter so much what he does, because he always gets what he wants in the end, Hyojong cumming deep inside of Hyuna, and Hyuna parting her folds for him so he can see inside.  

Sometimes she says something sharp to one or both of them. Most of the time, he can’t hear, because no sooner than Hyojong pulls back Hui’s burying his face into her pussy and lapping away his boyfriend’s cum. After all, he’s not going to fuck his girlfriend with another man’s cum inside of her.

That’s filthy.

As he looks across the asphalt and how it melts into the inky black sky, he sees an uncharacteristically still ocean. Although he should see it as a sign of an impending storm, wrath and  chaos dually loaded  into the front, he recognizes and appreciates the calm while it lasts. His first thought is that it’s probably Hyojong’s. His second thought comes Hyojong looks up at him through impossibly long boyish lashes. This time, the glance shared between them isn’t a mutual cry for help in understanding the situation before them, but one of subtle, mutual acceptance. It’s probably fine that it’s Hyojong’s.

* * *

 

He just wants one thing, one tiny little thing that Hui can’t control, and for that petty reason Hyojong hopes that it’s his. He’s been due for a hot streak, and so the universe owes him this one.

It comes in like this, zero to sizzling in a matter of seconds. There’s a queen high on the flop. Hangs on for the turn and he gets a jack. The river? The river is so, so, so good to him. Gives him a king that matches well with his queen and ace. When he rakes in a mountain of chips, he’d do well to just walk away, but he hangs in for another dozen hands and hits a full house, and a small straight. Then, he should really, really walk away, but he doesn’t.

The billowing smoke clouds inside of the casino part just for him, and blue and pink neon light from the slot machines shine down upon him ensuring that everything that he touches turns to gold. He bets a six red for Hyuna’s birthday. Then, a twenty-eight black for Hui, and by the grace of something bigger and better than himself he walks away with a small fortune.

Midas starved himself when everything turned into gold, but goddamn. After an endless night in the casino, he’s starved.

 So, when he finally emerges from the dark, smoke filled belly of the casino, he asks them all out to the kind of place where they bring out the bottle and show you the label. Of course, he reads it. Of course, he acts like he knows the same intricate secrets that the sommelier does.

But Hyojong doesn’t know a goddamn thing. All he knows is that for a split second, it’s like he found a very, very big rug, and swept the elephant in the room underneath it with the fat stack of bills. Hyuna’s wearing a slinky black dress. It’s hot as hell, but she’s wearing a mink around her shoulders like it’s December.  Hui’s got on a double-breasted suit that he’s never seen before.

It’s the kind of normal that’s too nice and to smooth to really last, like getting through Christmas dinner at home without a fight. All that he knows is that a bottle of Malbec worth more than a week’s rent at the motel isn’t going to be enough. But god, he’d give anything for it to last.

No. fuck that. He’s going to keep it all held together. He’s on a hot streak after all.

When the waiter brings three glasses, pours three glasses, Hui cocks a single arched brow, not at her but at him. Like even though Hui’s got the problem, he needs to say something.

“Do you think that’s a good idea?” Hui asks.  

“Why not?” Hyojong has the sense to shoo the sommelier away before raising his glass to his lips. Red wine tastes like dirt, regardless of the cost.

“Since when,” Hyuna’s voice cuts through the tension like a jagged rusted steak knife. “Is it okay to talk to me like I’m not even here?”

“Listen, maybe it would be best if--,” Hui interjects, obviously his response is laden with logic, reason, nothing that can arguably said no to.

“Hui.” The single syllable, his almost name, intimate yet knife like on her tongue, makes him visibly flinch as if she’d cut him with a knife. “Stop talking.”  

“Have some,” Hyojong tilts the bottle and pours more into her already perfectly filled glass. It’s a cheap shot, but he hates being corrected by Hui, especially in public.

“Hyojong,” she reaches across the table, takes Hyojong’s glass first, raises it to her mouth, and drains it in one.

Two.

Three.

Long purposeful gulps.

“You can stop talking too.” Then, she reaches over for Hui’s glass, takes it between her long blue nails, and raises it to her lips. She drains it in one.

Two.

Three.

Long purposeful gulps. Red lipstick stains the rim of the glass, and red wine parches her lips. Makes the skin pull up tight around the corners and turn mottled. Then, she takes her own glass, overfilled between her fingers. This time she sips slowly and the muscles in her throat move slowly as if the liquid were thick and viscous. “Hui’s right, I should probably take it easy.”

His mind doesn’t process the fact that its _probably_ the kind of comment designed to get at Hui more than him. Instead, all he hears is his name on her tongue, giving him credence and ruining his hot streak.

“You always take his side when I take yours,” Hyojong notes. Even now. Even when she’s _more_ at odds with Hui than him.

Hyuna doesn’t respond, just rolls her eyes over the rim of the wine glass.

Hui’s eyes travel from left to right across the table from the salad fork to the soup spoon before he speaks. Then, he raises his gaze to Hyojong’s challenging him. “I don’t see it as some kind of contest Hyojong I only want what’s best for—”

When he speaks again, he can’t control the timbre of his voice. Gone past the tone of polite dinner conversation it rises up above the soft chatter of the restaurant like a dark black cloud. “No you don’t. You want what’s best for you.” His voice, shrill and broken cuts the strings of the string quartet in the corner.

People stare.

And all of a sudden it doesn’t matter how many zeroes are attached to the price tag of the meal, he hasn’t changed. He’s ten or eleven years old again sitting at the kitchen table covered in a sticky, red and white gingham table cloth made of vinyl. He’s just as confused, angry, and volatile now as he was back then. “You want what makes you feel important.” The flat of his palms meet the table, and the china is so delicate it rattles against the slightest vibration.

Hyuna doesn’t gasp, doesn’t act appalled. Instead, she straightens her mink, finishes the bottle, and books it back toward the coat check for her purse. God only knows when she’ll turn back up.

Of course, Hui calls after her, “baby don’t go.” But he knows that it’s futile. Turns his gaze back to Hyojong sour and sullen before he even finishes calling after her.

In his mind, Hyojong’s next words were dripping in disdain, but in reality they come out more as a pathetic, half-assed, plea, “get the fuck out of here.” And, “Go after her Hui.”

For once, Hui does exactly as he’s told. Slings the suit jacket over his shoulder and leaves Hyojong at the restaurant bar to recreate the last five minutes in his mind over and over again with only so much as a gin and tonic for company. He’s washed the germs of sincerity out of his gut a long time ago, and he’s not sure how to grow them back.  Cold, desperate, and uncertain, Hyojong gropes in the darkness for something he just cannot reach. Because of this, he hopes that it’s his.

* * *

 

Upon entering the room, Hyuna peels the mink collar away from her neckline and tosses it onto a high backed, brocade chair as if it were nothing. “Hyojong,” she scratches at her armpits a way that is both too intimate to be endearing, and too human to be repulsive. “I don’t see how you wear this stuff. Probably smells like death.”

Hui doesn’t say a word, simply picks up the fur and hangs into onto a velvet lined hangar.

They don’t go back to the motel that night, but instead get a room at the Shilla. A comped gift from the casino to Hyojong because he was on a hot streak, they were desperate to win their money back. Hyojong shares the consolation prize between the three of them, even though he could’ve just called things off over the disaster that was dinner. Instead, he pulled them all back together.

“Anyway,” she toes out of her heels, and as she moves across the carpet the skirt of her dress fans out around her ankles making it look as if she were floating. When she rests the tips of her fingers on Hui’s chest, it feels like he’s floating too. “It takes too much energy for me to be angry at either of you.” She dare not let the weight of her palm press against his skin for fear that the precarious illusion of daintiness be broken. “When you’re really just pissed off at each other. She tugs at the corner of his medallion patterned silk bow tie until it becomes uneven and lopsided, like a child’s hastily tied shoelace. She looks back over her shoulder at Hyojong like an afterthought, before Hui’s trapped in the wide flash of her gaze once more. “I’m taking a shower. Make up by the time I get out.”

The pipes in the shower squeak and rumble to life and accompanies the sound of running water. No sooner than the door closes behind her, Hyojong’s lighting up two cigarettes. Hui’s extracting crystal clear ice from a bucket brought up by room service, depositing them into twin glass tumblers, and pouring whiskey over top. When they trade vices, their fingers brush against one another, their eyes meet possibly for the first time since dinner.

And in an instant, it’s all pushed aside.

Hui moves to turn off the air conditioning and open the large bay windows that lead out to the room’s balcony. Hyojong hates the way that the manufactured cold air clings to his skin. Wants to feel the city breathe outside, even if it suffocates him.

“Don’t,” Hyojong’s voice is soft, almost vulnerable.

“You hate it when—”

“It’s not really about me anymore. Is it?”

Ice clinks in Hui’s glass. Hyojong takes a deep drag of his cigarette, pulling the cherry downward. On the exhale, the city breathes with him, pulling noise and pollution into the room and dirtying all the nice clean things inside.

From the bathroom comes the soft muted sound of Hyuna’s voice, “wouldn’t it be nice to live together?” Syllables are muted, so that he only catches half of what is said, but the tune is unmistakable, “Wouldn’t it be nice to-“

“Right,” Hui responds.

Hyojong closes the distance between them, undoes his bow tie, and tosses it to the floor.

A whisper to soothe away the shouting, lips brush against lips to make sure one isn’t going to deck the other. Not that that has happened before…Hyojong’s lips feel uncharacteristically dry against his own. The taste of whiskey melts with whiskey and the spark that’s always been between them catches fire.

“You can be such a fucking dick sometimes,” Hui confesses as he breaks away from the juncture of Hyojong’s neck, ugly purple mark in bloom on his skin.

Their clothes are peeled away slowly, as if they understand one false move could shake something loose and cause an explosion.

“Hui,” fingers tangle into his hair, and pull his head back, exposing his neck and jaw to Hyojong. “Stop talking.”

Hui does as he’s told, even though it threatens to become a habit. By the time Hyuna emerges from the shower, hair soaked, completely naked, but lipstick reapplied, Hyojong’s got two fingers slipped inside of Hui.

Any other person would see it as greed, or another attempt at him reigning in control. But it’s anything but a power move, and the closest thing he’s ever given to Hyojong to an honest to god apology. For the three of them, it’s decided without comment or argument, because they just _know._

Hyuna doesn’t join them right away. She takes the time to walk in front of the bed, go over to the nightstand, pick up his pack, and shake out a Parliament. The lighter flicks in time with the crook of Hyojong’s fingers.

The moan that’s torn from his throat is loud and uninhibited, not like Hui himself at all. A silent request for more is made when he clenches down on Hyojong’s fingers and never for a moment breaks eye contact with her, despite the fact that he absolutely hates being put on display like this.

“Huh.” A trail of smoke follows Hyuna as she walks back down around the bed. The mattress dips slightly when she finally sits upon the corner of the bed. On the California King it may as well be a million miles away. “You actually,” sucks in air, inhales slowly, and waits for Hyojong to drag another moan out of him before she speaks again. “Listened to me.”

“He’s almost being sweet,” Hyojong laughs into his ear, and he can feel each vibration of sound down his spine.

“Really? What’s the catch?”

“Nothing much, just our hearts,” the icy feel of Hyojong’s free hand ghost down his flank and rest upon his hip.

Hyuna’s mouth twists into a smile, and he can see the way her eyes sparkle. She shoves the butt into the ash tray, and coos, “sounds serious.”

“And our bodies,” Hyojong scissors his fingers so deep that every scheme and every plan and every underhanded thing he’s ever done is wiped clean from his mind.

“Are you gonna come closer?” Hui asks.  

Crawling across the bed, she sits in front of him, spreads her legs wide for him. In one fluid motion. Hyojong’s hand on the small of his back pushes him downward, and she opens her legs for him.

“And our souls,” burns in his ear as Hyojong pushes into him.

He knows exactly what she likes best, lapping along her folds and then alternating between soft probing motions with his tongue and pressure with his lips. The burn, the stretch, the mere presence of Hyojong spurns him on.

Hyojong pounds into him. Only, only when his jaw is tight, and his chin is sloppy wet with her does Hyojong thread his fingers into his hair and pulls him upward, bracing Hui against his chest so Hyuna can lie upon her back and envelop him completely.

God, does it feel good to be used.

It’s the kind of thing that’s supposed to overwhelm him. Smash that small vulnerable place at the place where the base of his skull meets his spine, that place where body meets soul, and disconnect him properly from all the things that make him inaccessible.

Instead, it feels like everything is heightened, as if he could feel each cell in his body, and Hyojong’s, and Hyuna’s too. Like he can feel them all breathe, horrifically off tempo, but desperately trying to come together as a single asymmetrical, freakish oneness.

He can feel the way she tightens around him with each breath. He can feel the way Hyojong twitches inside of him. Feels the way his chin digs into the angular line on his body where shoulder meets neck meets collar bone. Sees the way that her long lashes cage the whites of her eyes as her half-lidded gaze lifts lazily upward. Their eyes meet for a moment, and then she moves onward,  meeting Hyojong’s over his shoulder.

Trapped in between the physical space between them, and tightly sewn in between the emotional space between their gaze confirms what Hui already knows.

If it were his, it would be something that happened by chance. No plans, no fail safes, no corrections. Just blind, senseless luck. It wouldn’t matter so much, if fate had decided this for them. In that moment, he hopes that it’s his.

* * *

 

He kind of hopes it’s Hui’s. At least, that’s his first thought when he comes back to the motel room and she’s sunk into the overflowing bathtub naked, save for his fur coat. Never mind the fact that it’s chinchilla, or that it retails for far more than the car is worth, it had a fresh pack of Parliaments in the pocket and he’s got nothing more than pocket change to his name right now.

Yesterday they bought a dozen oranges advertised as, “from sunny Florida,” at the corner stand. Now, thick waterlogged orange peels lie suspended in water.  

Empty liquor bottles are stacked around the tub. The left over bottle of Hennessy from right before Hyuna told them, he didn’t finish it because it’s no fun to drink without her,  sits in line with the half empty bottle of wine that he intended to down himself, but got swept up in something better. Hui’s Courvoisier, the one that he carries from town to town looking for a special occasion, well it’s knocked over. Whatever she didn’t drink is spilled onto the tile.

Her hands, clothed in sopping wet sleeves raise a corner store beer to her mouth. Half of it spills down into the tub, and if the sheer amount of empty bottles around her weren’t a dead giveaway, her drooping lip and glassy eyes are. “I’m trying to kill myself.”

“Well, you’re doing a really bad job,” and even though he should probably be taking this seriously, he can’t help but crack a lopsided grin.

“You should know,” as if she busted her pretty face against the side of the cracked porcelain tub, her mouth also morphs into an uncertain smile that sends shivers down his spine. “I’m going to actually do it. I’ve got my curling iron plugged in.”

It’s at that moment he notices the little red light flickering from the hot pink appliance. Never mind the fact that her clothes were strewn everywhere, and her suitcase was open on the bed. She was in the middle of leaving and got too fucked up to follow through.

“Not good enough. The cord isn’t long enough to reach the water.” If he were half the man she thought he was, he’d diffuse the situation entirely. Tell her she was loved, and tell her that she wasn’t going anywhere. They’d put her dresses back into the closet, and then make it through this.

Instead, he helps her out of the tub first trying to lift her out, but finding the sopping wet coat too heavy, falls on top of her in the tub. Sends liquor bottles clinking across the floor and leaves Hyuna laughing. Cause his coat isn’t enough, and she’s got to go for his Hermes tie too.

When he finally gets them both out of the tub, he knows that it would be so easy to just throw her over his shoulder sopping wet, put her on the bed, and pretend they could fuck away their problems. Instead, he sits her on the ledge of the tub, wraps her in one of the scratchy motel towels and pats her dry. Ignores her pouts of,  “Hyojo-ong.”

“C’mon,” and he pours her into a flannel nightgown that hides her body and smooths out the shivers that come from hours waterlogged in the tub. He can’t find her slippers, and so he leads her barefoot out across the parking lot. Prays to god that her bare toes don’t find any stray needles.

The sun drags a neon gradient across the horizon, black melting into purple, melting into orange and red, and everything that’s touched by the lingering light is burned by the hot coals of what’s left of the sun.

There’s an old tenement building across the parking lot and just down the street. Mostly abandoned, there’s a long meandering fire escape that goes up all seven stories to the rooftop. The kind of place most frequently haunted by junkies and crazies, it’s not the best place to bring his emotionally volatile, pregnant girlfriend, but he does it anyway. Cause he’s been there before, and if she’s anything like him, and god he’d like to believe that were true, there’s a sweet spot between pity and calling the bluff. That spot exists right between the fourth and fifth ribs. In that spot, genuine human spirit can be wielded like a knife, and pop the self-destructive balloon that wells up where the lungs should be and suffocates them all.

They’re going to catch their breath together.

“Careful now.” He cages her small frame with his own body. Makes sure that if she does try to go over the side, she’ll take him out first. It’s barely a failsafe at all, and incredibly stupid.

“What does it matter?”

“Well, you won’t die for one. What if you maim yourself? Then you’ll be stuck.”

“You’ll push me off a cliff in my wheelchair.”

“Not if I’m maimed too,” he says curtly.

His tricolored oxfords click against the mesh like patterned metal of the stairs. When they reach the top, the setting sun and the lights of the city are blocked out against the back light of a large billboard sign that rises up over the highway. Neon orange volcanoes erupt, and highlight the hotline to the health department. The words read in large white block letters, “syphilis explosion,” and fuck the Mona Lisa, it’s shit like this that belongs in a museum.

“So,” their fingers are laced tight, and they’re far enough from the low ledge that lines the roof of the building. He’s got her arm twisted _just_ right, so she can’t bolt. “We gonna do this?”

Hollow stomping noises accompany the sight of the pale bottoms of her feet as she drags him down the length of the building, but nowhere closer to the edge. “Fuck you Hyojong.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m so sick of you treating me this way. You. Hui.” Anyone else would call this out as drunken hysteria. Time to sleep it off, but he knows better. If Hui thinks about things a hundred steps ahead, she thinks of things a hundred and one steps ahead, and he thinks in negatives. Kicks down whatever they’ve orchestrated in an instant, and whether it works out or not, they’re always livid.

“C’mon, you and me til the end. That’s why we’re up here. You wanna die right, babe?”

The sound of cars underneath on the freeway drown out the sound of her sobs, and take the edge out of her voice. The spotlights cast strange shadows on her face, but he can still see the streaks of tears. Her feet are filthy from traversing the parking lot, and in that moment, it’s just that simple. He’s fucked up.

Pursed lips part, “no Hyojong, I don’t want to fucking die. You know that. But you know what?” She spits onto his tricolored oxfords. “It’s already fucking over for me.” Somewhere between the swearing, and the fists pounding against his chest, her body melts into his. “You and Hui treat me like a fucking object now. It’s another pissing contest for you, and do you know how fucked up that is for me?” His fingers tangle into her hair, and she smells like chamomile and malt liquor.

He could tell her a lot of things right now. Like that she holds the power to end the strange silent contest between himself and Hui, because even though he knows they’re behavior right now cant decide who busted a nut at just the right time, he can’t stop himself.  Just pick one, because that kind of thing shouldn’t really matter between them, but right now it does. He could tell her that he’s sorry. No more talking over her. No more looking past her to growl at Hui.

Instead, he slots his mouth over hers and gets drunk on the taste of cheap beer and expensive liquor. Brushes away the tears from her streaked face, and kisses her until the hiccup-sobs of crying fade into a breathlessness that’s tinged with need.

Kisses melt into love bites scattered across every inch of flesh that isn’t covered in flannel. Someday, he’d like to get to a place where they can do something other than fuck through their problems, but now isn’t the time, and after all, what have they got to lose?

Hyojong slides up behind her, rucks the flannel of her gown up high. As his fingers work between her legs, he finds that she’s already wet.

“It’s neither of yours,” her voice isn’t laced with venom, but something shaky and vulnerable. Like it might be true. “It’s that guy we met at the hold em’ table.” A confession designed to gain trust as she clenches down upon his fingers, like he’s some kind of mark. He guesses he deserves it.

Doesn’t stop the throb-pulse clot of jealousy from building in his veins and getting trapped in his heart. “You’re a really bad liar.” Grabbing her by the wrist, he pivots them back toward the cold metal railing. “That’s why that job was fucked.”

“Yeah, not at all because you ate a fistful of pills in the bathroom be-“ She braces herself against it, because she knows exactly what to do. Even when they’re angry they’re in synch. A curse and maybe they’re only saving grace. He guides her back down onto his cock, and she whimpers at the too fast too rough intrusion.

He shouldn’t handle her this way, but it’s what she wants.

It’s spoken to him in the way that she pushes back against him, and the way that she curses his name to filth under her breath, and the way that her fingernails dig into his hands when he links them together.

“I’m leaving you.”

“Where?” Clench of her body, roll of his hips, the threat regardless of whatever sincerity was already packed into her suitcase, is lost. “Are you going?”

When there’s no answer, he growls low and rough into her ear, “tell me.”

“Far away.”

He doesn’t press her anymore, but instead holds her as if this were the last time he ever would. Dutifully, he presses wet kisses down her neck line and pets her until she’s cumming on his cock.

It’s not until his cum is dripping down her thigh, hidden by flannel pulled back down across her legs that he speaks again. Her face is streaked with tears and puffy, and it’s difficult to be angry anymore. Together, they sit upon the ledge, legs draped over, feet knocking against rough brick. “Let me go with you.”

“Why?” Her voice isn’t laced with venom this time, because she wants to be persuaded.

“Cause,” it’s the kind of line that she’s never bought off of him. Ever. It’s part of her charm. But here’s the thing. With her, it’s never a line, but always the truth. This is the kind of thing that he doesn’t say freely, but would never deny. “I can look up at the sky and think of you, and wonder where you are. Or,” he can see Orion’s belt, and Venus blinks down upon them, as if giving them her blessing. “We can look at it together.”

He expects the momentary truce between them to fade. But here’s the thing, flannel rubs her skin raw and makes her vulnerable. So, she accepts the words that he says for what they are, the absolute truth. “Alright.”

In that moment, it doesn’t matter if she’s scrambled it all to hell with liquor and cigarettes and god knows what else. It doesn’t matter if it’s Hui’s. They’re together, and it feels right.  

* * *

He kind of hopes it’s Hyojong’s. That’s what he thinks when he’s got the car idling in a garbage littered alleyway on an overcast Saturday afternoon. They watched a woman shuffle inside half an hour ago, and Hyuna wanted to wait and see when she came out, “if she looked happy, sad, or like she was going to go to the store and pick up milk next.”  

The rain has tapered off, but they both sit frozen in space and time, so he can’t bring himself to reach up onto the steering wheel and turn off the wipers. Doing so would mean unclasping their hands, or putting out the cigarette that burns too long at the end with ash. He should tell her she doesn’t have to do it. He should tell her that he’d rather she not do it.

In the mean time, the slow tepid feeling of acceptance and resignation creeps across his hunched shoulders and down his back. It’s Hyojong’s.

“You know I have a sister, older than me?”

“You mentioned a sister,” the statement reminds him just how much they don’t know about one another. He knows inconsequential things. She doesn’t like blue, and he knows that Hyojong feels caged in by the city. He knows big, ugly, traumatic things. Hyojong’s fucked up because his stepdad was a piece of scum that needed to be locked up. She’s fucked up because her mom was a drunk. But he’s still fighting to find the place between the deepest depths of the pit and the surface level husk. Hyojong’s right, he wants the bitter-sweet soul fruit, all of those little details that make a person whole.

It’s Hyuna that unlinks their clammy, intertwined hands. She rolls her head and neck around in slow circles like she usually does when she’s drunk and she wants to dance. Long blue fingernails scratch at the volume dial, and crank up the music so loud that the car shakes.

The music is light, airy, with a hidden undertone of melancholy. It’s the kind of song slapped into movie soundtracks, and commercials without anyone bothering to listen to the words. _“Wouldn’t it be nice if we were older.”_

When the song ends, and a new one begins, Hyuna dials down the radio so it’s off completely. Then, she kicks off her heels and shakes another cigarette out of the pack. “I hate that fucking song.”

“When I was younger, my sister was seeing this guy and—” Hyuna interrupts herself to shift the hard candy in her mouth from one cheek to the other with a _clink_ against her teeth.  “My mom took her to this place uptown. Bought me three packs of Lemon Heads, some Red Hots, and a coloring book. Left me in the car, and I was in there for hours. Well-“ she sucks in air and blows smoke out of her nose. “It felt like hours. I ate all the fucking candy, and it was hot outside. Mom told me not to open the door no matter what. I guess there were a lot of low lives around-“

Hui’s hands find her own again and squeezes. Tears streak down her full cheeks, puffy with hard candy. The windshield wipers drone on. Scraping and scraping against the glass, removing rain that just wasn’t there.

 “Anyway I fucking puked on the leather interior of my mom’s fucking DeVille. But when her and my sister got out, she wasn’t even mad. She was white, like she’d seen a fucking ghost, but she didn’t even yell at me.”

It’s hard to pull her close across the seat but he tries. Gets half her body into his lap before she turns into a listless ragdoll.

“My sister got real sick. We shared a room you know. Up until she got married when she was twenty. I really thought she was going to die Hui. I hadn’t seen that much blood. Ever. You see that?” She points to the overflowing ashtray. “Her skin looked like that.”

If he were half the man he thought himself to be, he’d tell her it’s alright. He’d start up the ignition. They’d speed down the Boulevard and scream until their lungs hurt and find Hyojong. Instead, his throat closes in on itself. His hands feel heavy and unable to reach the keys.

“The worst part was…when she did get married…The guy she married wasn’t half bad. Had a job. They wanted a baby, but she never got pregnant.”

It’s three cigarettes between them worth of silence before the cogs in his brain kick into gear again. After a life time of turning, and turning, and turning, this one has had him stumped. “Hyuna,” not Babe, or Baby, but her real name. It feels thick on his tongue like the same kind of film you get from sucking on candy, but without the saccharine sweet. “Do you want a kid someday?” He starts out slowly, because she doesn’t like surprises. Start out slowly and work up to the big picture, he’s got a priceless painting and he’s got to sell her on the details.

“Someday.” Someday, but not now, but there’s no way she’s going into that building with black paper tacked over the windows.

Hui leans over the gearshift, never mind the way that it gets jammed into his stomach. Kisses her deep, and slow, like they were the kind of people to have a first date. Soft press of the lips, wait until she gasps into the kiss, and deepen it just like that. When he pulls away with a cheeky tug on her lower lip with his teeth, it makes her gasp. Then, he wipes her tears away, not with his silk handkerchief, but with his thumbs. Holding her face between his hands he speaks, “someday, when you’re somebody’s wife. When you have a picket fence, and house, and matching Tupperware?”

“Fuck you Hui.”

“You wanna be somebody’s wife?”

The clerk at the desk of the Arrowhead Motel gives him a key without him even asking, and he slides bills over the counter without waiting for his change. They’re good to him there. He never has to use a fake name when checks in, they never say he’s here when Hyuna or Hyojong call, and never judge when he’s out in a couple of hours. Hair in the bathtub, toothpaste on the sink, he’ll put his jacket over the sheets in the bed, but he won’t wait.

Neither will she.

She’s barefoot, save for her ripped, nude colored panty hose. Waiting for her to put her shoes back on will take too long. He carries her into the room, first over the shoulder like a caveman, puts her down onto the ground to open the door, and picks her back up, this time in his arms bridal style. Just like in the movies.

His lips don’t leave hers until cherry red lipstick is smeared across his face and her despondent pout is kissed away.

He drops her onto the bed with a bounce, and all he gets for his efforts is a squeal, and a soft kick to his stomach. She chides him, “be careful!”

The knees of his is slacks are gonna meld into the sticky carpet fibers, but he doesn’t care. Instead, he kisses her one more time before moving down her body, worrying marks into her skin until she squeals, and pounds against his back like she’s truly offended. 

Marking over the comingled red and purple bruises he and Hyojong have left in the past few days, he paints over her skin and makes it his once more. Her dress is peeled back like the paisley paper clinging to the walls of the hotel room.  Her underwear pulled downward and left suspended between her ankles

When he’s satisfied with the attention he’s given to her neck and her collar bones he moves down lower. A single, playful kiss on her stomach turns into two, into three, into four, across her sides, and her navel.

Kissing down her ribs, he’s interrupted by a laugh, light, airy, and completely absent of the heaviness that weighed down her voice in the car. “Hui that tickles.”

And he’d stop, he really would, but the flutter of her stomach against his skin is addictive.

“God, I’m gonna fucking marry you!”

“No,” he pauses to move up her body place a kiss on her mouth. “I’m going to marry you.”

It’s nothing special. Nothing at the Arrow Head can be truly special. But it feels significant when he curls his fingers inside of her until what’s left of her mascara has run down her face. It feels special when after she’s done cumming on his fingers, he blows a raspberry long and loud into the soft flesh of her stomach.

Of course, it’s absolutely unforgettable when  the cry of “Hui, you bastard,” becomes a joyous thing to hear once more.

  And in that moment, he hopes that its his. Not to get back at Hyojong. Not for the sake of making sure that he has some connection to her that’s stronger than this beautiful, fleeting thing between the three of them, but because he wants all of the things he teased her for. A home, and something resembling a normal life. Until a few moments ago, it all seemed like some sugar coated thing kept behind a window display and wrapped in a Cartier box. Now, now it seems real. In that moment, it doesn’t matter if it’s his at all.  

“Fuck you and fuck this.” There’s a hand on his chest pushing him away followed by the _clack_ of the door to the car opening. She almost slips through his grasp, but he catches her wrist in just the neck of time.

“You wanna be my wife Hyuna?”

* * *

 

The clerk at the desk of the Arrowhead Motel gives him a key without him even asking, and he slides bills over the counter without waiting for his change. They’re good to him there. He never has to use a fake name when checks in, they never say he’s here when Hyuna or Hyojong call, and never judge when he’s out in a couple of hours. Hair in the bathtub, toothpaste on the sink, he’ll put his jacket over the sheets in the bed, but he won’t wait.

Neither will she.

She’s barefoot, save for her ripped, nude colored panty hose. Waiting for her to put her shoes back on will take too long. He carries her into the room, first over the shoulder like a caveman, puts her down onto the ground to open the door, and picks her back up, this time in his arms bridal style. Just like in the movies.

His lips don’t leave hers until cherry red lipstick is smeared across his face and her despondent pout is kissed away.

He drops her onto the bed with a bounce, and all he gets for his efforts is a squeal, and a soft kick to his stomach. She chides him, “be careful!”

The knees of his is slacks are gonna meld into the sticky carpet fibers, but he doesn’t care. Instead, he kisses her one more time before moving down her body, worrying marks into her skin until she squeals, and pounds against his back like she’s truly offended. 

Marking over the commingled red and purple bruises he and Hyojong have left in the past few days, he paints over her skin and makes it his once more. Her dress is peeled back like the paisley paper clinging to the walls of the hotel room.  Her underwear pulled downward and left suspended between her ankles

When he’s satisfied with the attention he’s given to her neck and her collar bones he moves down lower. A single, playful kiss on her stomach turns into two, into three, into four, across her sides, and her navel.

Kissing down her ribs, he’s interrupted by a laugh, light, airy, and completely absent of the heaviness that weighed down her voice in the car. “Hui that tickles.”

And he’d stop, he really would, but the flutter of her stomach against his skin is addictive.

“God, I’m gonna fucking marry you!”

“No,” he pauses to move up her body place a kiss on her mouth. “I’m going to marry you.”

It’s nothing special. Nothing at the Arrow Head can be truly special. But it feels significant when he curls his fingers inside of her until what’s left of her mascara has run down her face. It feels special when after she’s done cumming on his fingers, he blows a raspberry long and loud into the soft flesh of her stomach.

Of course, it’s absolutely unforgettable when  the cry of “Hui, you bastard,” becomes a joyous thing to hear once more.

  And in that moment, he hopes that its his. Not to get back at Hyojong. Not for the sake of making sure that he has some connection to her that’s stronger than this beautiful, fleeting thing between the three of them, but because he wants all of the things he teased her for. A home, and something resembling a normal life. Until a few moments ago, it all seemed like some sugar coated thing kept behind a window display and wrapped in a Cartier box. Now, now it seems real. In that moment, it doesn’t matter if it’s his at all.  

* * *

 

His mouth feels as if it had been stuffed with thick cotton. His head throbs, and his lower back radiates pain as if he’d been bounced from a club or went down somewhere swinging. That’s as natural as brushing his teeth in the morning. No, what’s weird is that when he stretches his arm over Hyojong there’s space in the usually cramped bed.

And there’s no warmth on the other side of him. No long toenails scraping the soft flesh of his calves and telling him she’s cold.

No sound of running water in the shower.

It hits his gut like a blow from the biggest, nastiest meathead of a club bouncer. He just knows. She’s not out for a smoke. 

* * *

 

There’d been this nagging sensation to just come clean to Hui. Doesn’t matter how many botched jobs or all out brawls between them, it had been him and Hyojong before they met her. As much as he hates the way he can all but hear the gears turning in Hui’s head, it’s comforting, to know that he’s always got an ace up his sleeve. It feels like running in the dark right now without it.

He wakes suddenly, almost violently. Dragged upward into consciousness and dumped flat on sheets that are twisted fitfully in the way that only three drunk, scheming people can sleep in agony.

Hyuna’s gone.

Hui on the other hand, god he can’t remember the last time he saw Hui look so at rest. Not a crease to be seen in his brow or his eyelids. The soft hum-buzz of an almost snore slips through his nose, and slightly parted lips.

Who knows the last time he’s truly been at rest like this.

He hates to fuck it up, but he’s got to sneak in a kiss. Before he brushes away the thick scent of morning breath from his mouth, and the hurt and confusion that she’s gone burns down into anger directed at each other.

So, he does. Presses his lips to Hui’s and waits for the soft gasp of confusion to slip from his mouth. 

Hui squints at him, as if the thin bands of light that stream in from the blinds burn against his eyes. The look of confusion upon his face isn’t from the sleep that hasn’t quite left his body, or the question that he asks, “where’s Hyuna?” No, it’s from the internal debate that rages inside. What do they do now?   

“Out for a smoke.”

He knows it’s a lie. Hui knows it’s a lie, but it buys them just a sliver of time.

“Hm,” Hui comes to a decision when he slots his mouth over Hyojong’s, and Hyojong agrees with him. The kiss starts slowly, with Hui’s lower lip brushing against his upper lip. Moan into the kiss, and Hyojong deepens it immediately. Their breath tastes awful, their tongues feel thick and coated as they press against one another. They passed out naked last night and both of their hands roam over sticky sweat slicked skin. They smell like cigarettes, ash, and the sour scent of body odor. Clammy, uncomfortable, addictive he wouldn’t have it any other way.

* * *

 

They always have the best sex when they’ve been knocked down a peg. This is the calm before the storm, just before anger edges out confusion between them, and well before they become hyper focused once more on the next hustle.

The masks of designer clothing, fast money, and cumbersome egos that they believe to be real are pushed away. With her gone, they’re denied even so much as one last sip from that crystal stemmed glass illusion. All they are, and all they will ever be, are dirty, hungover and wrung out people who just want to be loved.

Hyojong ruts against his thigh like he’s still some pasty guy he picked up in a Vaseline bar at four in the morning. Hui rocks back into the touch like he’s a teenager again, and this is the best kind of fucking he can possibly imagine.

Hyojong emerges from the sheets to slot himself between Hui’s legs. Lines their cocks up, and gives one firm, purposeful stroke down their cocks and then back up again with a flick of his wrist. Then another, and another, until Hui allows himself to become swept up in it.

“Hey,” he can feel the shape of his smile pressed against his ear when Hyojong whispers syrup sweet to him. “Let me fuck you.”

“Tell me,” Hui hooks a leg behind Hyojong’s knee and rolls them over so easily, it’s easy to see that Hyojong’s request is negotiable. The sheets feel gritty against his skin. Dirt, and crumbs, and god knows what else they tracked in.

“Tell me you’re not still loose from last night.” Hui’s request turned demand is lost in an onslaught of sloppy, open mouthed kisses, so to reiterate, Hui folds his legs up, to his chest, teases his cock against Hyojong’s crack.

Hyojong, slick with perspiration slithers out of his grasp easily and pounces Hui. Hui pushes back, and it’s never this difficult to decide. Hyojong once didn’t speak to him for half a day after a $10 side bet. They’ll throw their egos into absolutely anything, but never how to best fuck each other.

 But it’s just like them, coat the burn with salve, and then crank up the heat.

So, Hui turns on the flame. “I can’t let you fuck me on what was supposed to be my wedding day.”

And Hyojong brings the gasoline. Face falls in disappointment, but spits without missing a beat. “We’re supposed to be a hundred miles away from you right now.”

It’s a dirty move, throwing the first punch when he’s on top, but Hyojong does it anyway. Roll of his head, and it barely grazes his cheek. Hui twists away from him, and throws a punch without looking, because he’s always been bad at fighting.

Hui’s second attempt is much more successful. Naked as the day they were born, they both roll out of bed. He lands square near Hyojong’s eye, and a shiner’s bound to follow. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Me? Fucking me over was so important to you. You were going to _marry_ her?” Hyojong crawls over the mattress, kicks over an end table, and whips back around. With a dense _smack_ and a delayed ripple of pain across his face, Hui has a shiner to match Hyojong’s.

Perfect.  

Hui charges and socks Hyojong square on the jaw. Hyojong doesn’t even reel from the blow, just turns his cocks his head looks at Hui with glassy eyes that smack of the same unhinged demeanor Hui fell in love with. Hui gets pushed into the particle board sliding doors by Hyojong and knocks them off their railing.

Knocked on his ass, watching Hyojong wipe blood from his mouth, time grinds to a halt.  Trapped in their bodies and suspended in time, all they can do is look at one another and wonder how the illusion was all so quickly torn away from them.

Hui prefers love bites to blows; Hyojong on the other hand? Hyojong’s still raging hard. Like they never got out of bed to beat the shit out of each other.

Hyojong wipes blood from his hand onto the curtain, half pulled off the rod, and offers it to Hui.

Just like that, they reach an unspoken agreement. They’re finished and washed clean by blood, bruises, and rugburn from sliding naked across the carpet. Falling back into bed together is easy.

* * *

Hui fucks him first.

Then he fucks Hui.

Rarely, but sometimes, it’s just that simple.

By the time they’re finished, the afternoon sun rises high and the window air conditioner thrums in exhaustion. Twin texts on their phones say, “St. Agnes at Sunset.”

“God, she fucking played us like a stacked deck.” Hui finds a pair of slacks on the floor and starts to pull them on, but gives up before getting them buttoned. Cigarette drooping out of the corner of his mouth, he looks like he’s at rest for the first time since god knows when.

“You cook better,” Hyojong’s raiding the rest of the booze, because there’s no way he’s showing up to this sober. “And when you sing, falsetto, you sound like a girl.”

Hui looks at him with half lidded eyes that feign disinterest in the same way that he tries to feign jealousy. That is to say, poorly. He raises his middle finger lazily, like it’s supposed to mean something, other than that he loves him.

“You’d make a better wife,” Hyojong says with a smile. “You’re more loyal.”

“Can I get that in writing?” Hui responds.

“It’s a lot like that job in Singapore.” Hyojong talks like he didn’t hear him, or didn’t make the compliment him at all.

As much as Hui would hate to admit it, it’s true. An easy job and a bag of cash. Hui and Hyojong pulled it off so smoothly they finished with the job while she was still nursing a bloody Mary at the bar.

She sucked their cocks to say, “congratulations,” and then ran off with the cash when they were in the shower.

So, they left for Phuket without so much as a note to the concierge in case she came back.

“What, you wanna leave her at the altar?”

Of course, the Phuket plan blew up marvelously. She ended up in Europe. They were sent a series of photos of her on the arm of some pasty-faced businessman and tangled up with a girl who looked barely twenty with bolted on tits.

So as much as he’d like to see her squirm, he’s against it on principle.

Hyojong approaches the bed, takes the cigarette from Hui’s mouth and puts it in his own. Breathes in deep, and sits down on the edge of the bed. Exhales, and kisses Hui hard with the taste of smoke still on his lips. “Nah,” and then he’s doing it all over again. Kissing Hui and wondering just how he can go from hot to cold and back again in the span of seconds.

There’s a Lucite and fake gold travel clock on the nightstand. Hyuna bought it for Hyojong, but Hui’s the one that winds it up and sets it when they enter a new timezone. Time is wound round and around, screwing up the face and giving them fewer and fewer options by the second.

“It’s hot outside today,” Hyojong says as he breaks the kiss.

“Hm,” Hui doesn’t pout. His brow crinkles in frustration when he doesn’t quite get what he wants, but he doesn’t pout.

“You know how pissy she gets when she has to be out in the sun. Let’s make her sweat.”

* * *

It’s so fucking nice, the way they cruise down the boulevard in the late afternoon sun like there isn’t a care in the world. Sunbeams spill into the car, but the cool breeze nips at their skin when the top is down. The push and the pull of temperature against his skin makes him smile.

It helps that Hui has decided to be Hui today. Not rigid, not calculating, just Hui. The one that only they get to see it rare moments: in the mornings when he picks up Hyuna’s fashion magazines and thumbs through them, or when he falls asleep with cartoons on. It helps that Hyojong has decided to be Hyojong today. Not someone whose so fucked up he can't feel his toes, or laughs when he gets punched in the face. Just Hyojong. The person who cries at romantic films, and watches soap operas while everyone else sleeps off their hangovers in the midday sun. 

Hui helps him into his white seer sucker suit. Ties a powder blue bow tie around his neck, and the energy is infectious. Hyojong does the same, smoothing the lines of Hui’s suit with the motel iron that barely gets lukewarm. Surrenders a soft salmon colored tie from his collection and ties it neat in a double Windsor.

Top down on the Skylark, they get burgers and milkshakes from the drive through. Hui keeps his arm draped across his shoulder the whole time, rubbing at his neck or stroking the shell of his ear. Hyojong keeps his hand on his thigh and traces circles in soft summer linen.

They should beat the shit out of each other more often.

* * *

 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” She stumbles out of the car before she can even kill the engine, and tries to hide the fact that she stumbles over the unhemmed edge of her dress. Hyojong’s got a black eye, and Hui’s got twin cuts on his face, one on his eyebrow and the other on his lip. God only knows what other bruises are hidden on their bodies beneath their clothes.

Despite it all, Hyojong and Hui look like a puffy, sweat and alcohol scented Armani ad leaning up against the Skylark in matching suits and mirrored sunglasses.

She doesn’t have to stand next to them to know that she’s going to look damn good beside them in her dress. It’s something straight out of one of those shitty day time reality shows where the bride has a ten thousand dollar budget of daddy’s money to spend. But she already knows they’re going to fight over which car to ride off into the sunset in. Hui’s skylark, which might as well be his other girlfriend, or the boat of a Continental she skimmed this morning. Can’t steer it or park it to save her life, but it’s hers and she took it out of the fried chicken shack parking lot fair and square.

“I was gone for what, six hours? And you already beat the shit out of each other?”

“Look,” Hui adjusts his cufflinks, as if he had a thread out of place. “I said it was rude to see the bride before the ceremony.”

“I wanted to make sure we didn’t have a runaway bride,” Hyojong follows.

“Just a disagreement,” Hui interjects.

“A small one,” Hyojong continues.

It used to bother her, when they were so in synch that they could finish each other’s sentences. It used to bother her, the way that they had whole conversations with the crease of their brow and the purse of their lips. Now? It only bothers her when she’s on the receiving end.

Right now? Well, right now she’s fucking livid.

Put together a plan like this just have these assholes almost kill each other? “Listen here,” her heels scrape against the uneven asphalt, and if she gets so much as a single scuff on her white patent leather, they’re both getting on their knees an licking them clean. “And mother fucker,” brand new French tips poke at their pressed dress shirts. “You’re not ruining this. Not for me. Not for—”

She can abuse it all to hell, but can’t call it what it is.

Tears prick at the corner of her eyes, “if my makeup runs,” but her voice is already cracking.

A blue silk handkerchief is thrust into her hands. “Whatever your plan is Hyuna. We’ll go along with it,” Hyojong says softly.

Hui hugs her from one side, Hyojong from the other, and they don’t speak again until the sun has dragged down into the mountains. “There’s a blind priest that runs this parish. Did you know that?”

They respond in unison, “no.”

“Yeah. So, Hyojong,” her mouth curls into a smile. It’s like counting cards, not that hard at all. “You’ll go first, and then Hui,”

“Yeah?”

“You’ll go next.” She waits for the bickering to start, an argument over who goes first and why they deserve it, or why this is stupid and accomplishes nothing other than her own appeasement. It never comes. “Okay?”

“Okay.”

But her feet stay grounded to the asphalt.

Hyjong’s fingers thread into hers on the left, “Hyuna-”

Hui’s fingers thread into hers on the right. “Let’s go.”

* * *

 

There’s a clock on the bathroom wall, pale blue plastic around the edges, and the image of a sea-shell in place of each number. She’s pretty sure it’s seven. She’s pretty sure she’s only been in the bathroom for a few minutes. But, the sound of the second hand _tick tick ticking_ down, makes it feel like she’s been on the toilet, ripped pantyhose around her ankles, for hours.

“Fuck this,” Hyuna throws last month’s issue of vogue over the test, because despite the fact that she can’t keep down a goddamn glass of ginger ale to save her life she’s still not ready. Getting up from the pepto-pink toilet, her pantyhose catch underneath her feet. She stumbles and braces herself the sink counter with a _thunk_.“And fuck this,” hissed through clenched teeth.

Ever since she tripped on a romper, tumbled head first into a Formica counte rtop, and had to get three stitches above her eyebrow, the boys would usually be all over this kind of thing. Knock on the door and ask if she were okay. As it stands, they’ve raided the records left out in a mildew scented crate. Beach Boys, the song she hates the very most, shakes the windows and makes her head hurt. 

Upon throwing the door open, she’s greeted with the kind of warm, cherished scene that she’s only ever seen when she’s with the two of them. Doesn’t matter if they’re in a seedy motel without a penny, a five star room fucking on a pile of money, or here, in a loft in mid-town.

Hui’s at the kitchen island, pulling dried pasta from a hideous, brown and orange colored canister.

Hyojong’s on his hands and knees. Rubber plastic yellow gloves run up his arm, almost all the way to the elbow. A pink apron is tied around his waist as he scrubs a large blood stain out of the off white carpet. The guy went over easy. Hyuna pushed him down, Hui got him with a glass ashtray, and it was all over.

The girl fought back. Bit Hyojong and ran down the hallway into the living room. He’s got a long way to scrub until the carpet is clean.

“Look at this,” Hyuna thrusts the test into Hui’s hands. He accepts it at first, and then recoils immediately what’s hidden underneath the magazine.

“Why me? I’m cooking. He’s the one wearing gloves.”

“Do not give it to me.” But Hyojong’s actions contradict his words as he bounds up from the carpet and walks into the kitchen.

“I thought you didn’t want it.”

“I don’t want to touch it. Let me look at it.”  

For a moment, it doesn’t even matter that they’re arguing over her goddamn piss test. It doesn’t matter if she’s really pregnant or not. Right between Hui and Hyojong, no matter how long it lasts…This is the world where she belongs.  

* * *

 

 

 


End file.
